Hi Darcy,
You can make an automator workflow to turn a TextEdit document
into an AAC file that appears in the Audiobooks section of your
iTunes library, but instead of using Sound Studio, do this in iTunes
and then use the MakeBookmarkable AppleScript from Doug's
AppleScripts for iTunes. Renaming your file extension from .m4a
to .m4b won't do this on a Mac -- it only works for iTunes on a PC,
because Windows has no information about the file type and how
it was created except through the file extension. On a Mac you have
to
identify the type as "m4b" to Finder through the AppleScript.
You want to go to:
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=makebookmarkable
The AppleScripts for iTunes web site is not particularly easy to
navigate
with VoiceOver because of the many links on each page. I suggest that
you use either the item chooser menu or the link chooser menu to first
go to the "printer-friendly" link and then, when the print menu comes
up after you select this link, send the printer-friendly output
either to
Preview or save it to a PDF file to view.
You'll be able to read through a list of the AppleScripts on that page
along with the descriptions. To retrieve an AppleScript you're
interested
in, use item chooser to select the name of the AppleScript that you
want using the name you read in Preview, such as "Make Bookmarkable
v.2.1". If you use grouping (I do) you have to stop interacting once
you get to the selection so that you're working with the grouped
elements, then VO-keys down arrow to the group that includes the
download link for that AppleScript, interact, select and start the
download.
You'll get a popup window telling you that the program is about
to start downloading. (In the list of Windows, this will have a name
like "Just a Minute"), and it will also tell you that this is
donationware.
(These AppleScripts are really useful, so I have contributed via
PayPal).
Depending on when the scripts were written you may get different
download delivery formats -- the old ones are .zip files and the newer
one are .dmg files, so you'll have to say Yes that you want the
download to continue. The new AppleScripts come with an
installer, but you'd have to drag and drop the icons for the
AppleScript
and the RTF file documenting it over to the Installer icon to use it.
(There are three icons in the .dmg window: the AppleScript, an RTF
documentation folder for the AppleScript, and the Installer.)
OK, it's possible to do with VoiceOver, by selecting the Installer
icon
and reading its screen position, then selecting the AppleScript and
RTF file, moving the mouse cursor there, locking the VO cursor, then
holding
down the trackpad or mouse key and starting to drag these to the
right, using the F5 key to monitor your progress until your reach the
Installer icon -- but it's really not worth it. Just copy the
AppleScript
and its RTF documentation file into your Library/iTunes/Scripts
folder.
If this is the first time you're using AppleScripts in iTunes you'll
have
to create the Scripts folder in the Library/iTunes folder under your
account. This is described in the RTF documentation file, so you can
just read it if you've forgotten to create the Scripts folder, or if
you can't
remember where to put these files.
The next time you start up iTunes, you'll have an extra menu for
AppleScript on your menu bar at the end of (to the right of) all
the regular iTunes menu bar entries, and just before the Help
menu. This works like any other menu option -- you select a
track or group of AAC tracks in your Music library, and choose
this menu option from the AppleScripts menu, that I'm told you
can hear announced in Leopard. (If you're using Tiger, the
menu is that silent spot just before the help, although if you use
VisioVoice instead of VoiceOver you should hear something).
You get a popup that tells you that the script is going to try to
make the file work with the iTunes Bookmark feature; just
carriage return to proceed, or else go to the cancel button.
You get another popup telling you it's Done; carriage return
to dismiss.
The track should disappear from Music and reappear in
Audiobooks under your Source list. If you check the file
extension (Command+R to view it in Finder), it should now be .m4b.
If you do Get Info before and after, you'll find that the description
of Kind: on the Summary tab has changed from AAC Audio file
to Protected AAC Audio File. (This has nothing to do with DRM,
or your ability to play or edit this file. There's a Make UN-
Bookmarkable
AppleScript that can change this back if you need to. That
AppleScript cannot remove DRM on books you purchase from
the iTunes Store.)
Remember to tidy up by closing all those windows and ejecting
the .dmg file under Finder, then sending it to the trash.
Use the ability of Automator to run AppleScripts to put this into
your work flow. You can also assign the AppleScripts to keyboard
shortcuts using System Preferences (Keyboard & Mouse, under
the Keyboard Shortcuts page), but you have to do this with your
application (iTunes) closed.
Darcy, you'll find a number of AppleScripts you may want
to try at the AppleScripts for iTunes site. Look at the bottom of the
Missing Menu Commands page (reachable from the mmc link)
for some of more helpful ones that aren't already described
on the pages where Make Bookmarkable is listed.
If you get into this, there are a lot of new tricky technical details.
Under Leopard with the latest version of iTunes and
QuickTime, iTunes changed the default format that it uses to
encode AAC files. This hits anyone using the latest QuickTime, and
by default you have the latest QuickTime with Leopard.
It makes a difference, because one of the neat options is to
join AAC files together and put Chapter markers at the joins,
so you can navigate the joined files like audiobooks from
iTunes or from Audible.com. But that only works (at present)
for the old encoding. That's why there's a "Rip AAC Old
School" AppleScript that's been newly added.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Esther
On Dec 06, 2007, at 07:11PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:
Hi. There is also an itunes action that will convert to different
formats. However, it imports the file which isn't what I want. I
want to be able to rename the file before I import, so it goes in to
books.
Darcy
On 7-Dec-07, at 12:06 AM, Josh de Lioncourt wrote:
If you combine the Automator script with an AppleScript, you could
probably do this. iTunes has an AppleScript function to convert,
but I've never used it. Let me know if you get this all working.
Josh de Lioncourt
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
...my other mail provider is an owl...
On 6 Dec, 2007, at 8:59 PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:
Hi everyone. I wanted to try an expand the automator workflow that
gets the currently open text edit document and converts it in to an
audio file. Here's what I wanted it to do. Once the aiff file was
created, it would then be opened in sound studio. The file would
then be saved as an aac file with a .m4a extension. The next
action would rename the file and change its extension to .m4b.
Finally, the file would get imported in to itunes. I wanted to
change the extension to m4b so that itunes would place it in the
audio books section, rather then in music.
The part that didn't work was the sound studio action to save the
file as an aac file. What it did was it saved the file as an aiff
again, but it threw in an m4a extension in the middle. So it was
something like audio.m4a.aiff. So either I'm doing something
wrong, or that automator action doesn't work properly.
I did a google search, and I found some other automator actions you
could get that would convert audio files. It appears though that
they require quicktime pro. I'm not apposed to buying quicktime
pro, but I'm not sure if I'd use it for anything else.
Anyway, since we've been talking about automator quite a bit
lately, I thought some of you might be interested in what I've been
trying to accomplish with it.
Darcy
